Emergency manager, former mayor spar at Pontiac hearing

PONTIAC -- It got warm in City Hall on Wednesday, and not because of the weather.

"What you've gotta know, sir, we're not happy with the way you're operating in this city," former Mayor Walter Moore said in a terse exchange with Emergency Manager Lou Schimmel.

Schimmel replied: "I am extremely proud of what I have done and what the staff has done here in the City of Pontiac, regardless of what you think."

Moore shot back: "The citizens of Pontiac don't feel the same way you do," to which Schimmel said, "You don't speak for all the citizens."

Director of Community Development Joe Sobota asked Moore to state his name for the hearing minutes. Moore said: "You know who I am. Don't even ask me who I am," as he left the podium.

As the former mayor stormed out of council chambers, he yelled: "You're a carpetbagger!" to Schimmel.

Moore is a trustee on the Pontiac General Employees Retirement System board. The reorganization of the pension board, the second time Schimmel has moved to cut the board from 11 to five members, was on the agenda of the Wednesday morning ordinance hearing.

Schimmel said he wasn't taking any action on the proposed ordinance and would let a judge decide the issue.

The City of Pontiac Retired Employees Association sued in December after Schimmel issued an order to reorganize the board, and Oakland County Circuit Judge Rae Lee Chabot granted a preliminary injunction in the case in February that restored the 11-person board.

The pension system, which is approximately 150 percent funded and has $450 million in assets, has become a point of contention as Schimmel plans on setting aside health care benefits for most of the city's retirees in the city's next budget in order to eliminate the structural deficit.

The emergency manager has proposed that the pension board vote to join the state Municipal Employees' Retirement System and use its surplus to fund retiree health care benefits.

Resident Warren Rodgers, who also speaks at most City Council meetings, said: "This is democracy lost."

Schimmel said it's not easy being an emergency manager.

"I'm trying to do the best job that I can, and the alternative to a lot of these hard moves I've made in the City of Pontiac would have been bankruptcy," he said.

Schimmel has paid off the majority of the city's debt, and the city now spends about $36 million per year, as compared to $55 million annually before the state took control of the city's finances in 2009.

Rodgers said: "They said slavery was a good law too," when Schimmel mentioned that he works under state law.